There is Shinobi & Samurai (free), an OD&D clone. It has classes like Bushi and Shinobi.Scarlet Heroes (free quickstart, affiliate links), one of my favorites from grandmaster Kevin Crawford (Sine Nomine Publishing). The setting is called Red Tide. It’s Asian flavored but also post-apocalyptic/horror. Strictly speaking no samurais and katanas.Ruins & Ronin(affiliate link) is based on Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox. Here is a review from Sword And Board. While writing this article, I also found Flying Swordsmen (free). Wuxia/Imperial China and cinematic rather than feudal Japan. It has a stunt system. It is a retro-clone of Dragon Fist. WoTC sold Dragon Fist to Green Ronin but they didn’t do anything with it. Legally, it’s in the nimbus but you can still find it on Scribd. Rules-wise Dragon Fist was close to AD&D 2nd edition. Here is a review of Flying Swordsmen.

What’s missing in this list of D&D-style-retroclones? Yep, it’s a The Black Hack hack. Every other day there is a new product for this rules-lite old school game. We have Cyberpunk, sci-fi, Victorian, Tékumel and more.

Kaigaku is an ambitious project but not an unreasonable one. The author, Jacob DC Ross, has already drafted a free beta version. The release version will have expanded content (more clans etc.) and artwork. The stretch goals are well thought out. The creator posts updates with the new content, so you’ll get a sense of the material. He also has read Kevin Crawford’s articles on crowdfunding. That’s a plus. Kevin knows how to fulfill a project and has written some good guidelines.

Will The Black Hack be a good fit for a Samurai game? That’s what I’m interested in. We’ll see.

The core PDF is USD $10 ($15 with stretch goals). The printed book coupon is $20 ($25 with stretch goals). Distribution via Onebookshelf, that means you’ll have to pay shipping and printing costs separately.

When I was a child, I wanted to be like the boy from Karate Kid. I wanted to kick ass with my cool Karate moves. I trained and practiced the Crane Kick. It must have looked funny.

Eventually, I learned a bit of Taekwondo at the age of 16. But I was never good at it. Still, watching Asian Martial Arts films inspired me.

For two years I played in an Oriental Adventures campaign. That’s the universe of Legends of the Five Rings adapted to D&D 3. The campaign fizzled out. My current group isn’t interested in the genre of Wuxia (martial arts in ancient China). We play D&D 5.

I played Feng Shui 2 online once. (Impressions here.) It was fun. But the PDF costs almost 20 bucks. And the hardcover costs more than 40 €. Don’t get me wrong, the game is surely worth it. But for something that won’t see a lot of play, it’s too expensive.

Enter Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate.

Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate is a wuxia RPG set in a fantasy world of feuding sects and martial heroes fighting in the shadow of a corrupt and powerful empire. The game comes with over 180 Kung Fu Techniques and complete rules for running a wuxia campaign. 1

This game clocks in at 492 pages. Interior art is black/white and professional. The layout somehow looks old-school. There are tons and tons of skills (point-buy-system): Kung Fu styles, Qi powers, Pressure Point techniques etc. Wandering Heroes has no classes. Races are optional. But players are part of a sect. At its base, this RPG is pool-based. You roll a number of d10s equal to your skill rank, take the highest result and compare it to a target number. It’s not a rules-lite game. Yet it seems not to be too complicated. The base mechanic is simple.

A lot of research has gone into the game. It feels authentic (if you can say that of a fantasy game). The background information is extensive. It’s certainly worth many months of gaming.

This article is not review. I only skimmed the game. I don’t know if it plays well or not.

But. It is Pay-What-You-Want. That means you can get the game for free. I’ve been following The Bedrock Blog sporadically. I was looking forward to the release. I’m still perplexed that they chose to release it for (essentially) free. But who doesn’t want to have an interesting RPG for zero (or more if you choose to)?

I don’t know if I will have the chance to play this with my friends. But I certainly hope so. Chances are at least better than becoming a master of the Crane Kick.

Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate: pay what you want at DrivethruRPG or RPGNow (affiliate links).

just a quick update: real life and learning to program is eating up almost all my time.

I received some Kickstarter rewards. Tiny Frontiers(affiliate link) among others. It is a minimalist sci-fi game based on Tiny Dungeon.

I’m looking forward to Belly of the Beast by Ben Dutter. It has an interesting setting. A giant beast has eaten up the world and you play scavengers inside it. The Ethos engine is a solid narrative system (see my post about Vow of Honor).

I’m keeping my lists updated, especially the list for The Black Hack . It looks like a new product comes out every other day. It’s crazy!

The Driftwood Verses is a gloomy, nautical fantasy campaign setting for old-school tabletop role-playing games. It’s directly compatible with Lamentations of the Flame Princess and more broadly compatible with a large selection of traditional systems. The contents can be used as a stand alone setting or slotted into your existing kitchen sink fantasy campaign as a distinct region in a larger world.

It features art by Sean Poppe. It looks great. Clint’s stuff is an insta-buy for me.

You can convince yourself of the quality of his work. For today only you can get Red Moon’s entire back catalog of PDFs for USD $1: Don’t Walk in Winter Wood, The Stygian Garden of Abelia Prem, and Vacant Ritual Assembly 1-5 (a 95% discount):

a mix of Sword and Backpack (see below) with TBH: free-form and minimalist

a mix of Scarlet Heroes, Whitehack and TBH (I’ve written about “Whitehack Heroes” before): “heroic” and old-school

a mix of Searchers of the Unknown (SotU), 1974 Style and TBH: ultra-lite

I’ve already begun work with Searchers of the Black. Unfortunately, I can’t find a way to incorporate TBH’s armor mechanic with SotU’s basic task resolution. Also, it looks like neither SotU nor 1974 Style are available under the OGL or Creative Commons. I will still need to contact the authors. However, there are countless variations of SotU, so it will likely be okay to make another hack.

First, the questions:How does this compare to Ancient Odysseys: Treasure Awaits1? They are similar. ADTA is an introductory role-playing game with a focus on dungeon-crawling. ADTA can be played as a standard RPG with a Game Master. Or it can be played solo. The mechanics are also very easy. I must admit that I’ve only played it once and it’s been some time. Without re-playing the game I can’t really say if one is better than the other. I’ve skimmed ADTA and it looks like it will give you the same experience as 4AD. The dungeon-generator looks to be simpler and there are no boss monsters. The game is a tad cheaper (USD $6.95 instead of $8 for 4AD).

How does it compare to similar boardgames such as Descent? (Other than waaaaaaaay cheaper) I’ve played Descent once, a friend of mine has the game. I can’t remember the mechanics anymore. Descent has some story elements and AFAIK you can’t play it solo. But the board game parts are of course much cooler. I’m not sure how you can compare these two. They are probably both dungeon-crawlers but I still see Descent as a board game and 4AD as a pen and paper game.

In the Solo RPG G+ community Wes Camp had some posts about a solo dungeon-crawler called Four Against Darkness (4AD) by Ganesha Games. It is available for USD $8.00 as a PDF from DrivethruRPG(affiliate link). It is a simple old-school inspired game that only uses six-sided dice.

You create 4 adventurers from the classic tropes (warrior, rogue etc.) and create a map as you go.

If you’re interested in the game, scroll down to the end, please!

Let’s try it out!

I have 4 heroes: Kurm (Warrior), Warren (Cleric), Yselda (Rogue) and Bonifatio (Halfling). Default marching order is Krum, Yselda, Bonifatio, Warren. I use Alex Schroeder’sgridmapper for the map.

So, this is the entrance room that I rolled up:

And there are 8 goblin swarmlings (lvl 3, treasure -1, morale -1). My adventurers will attack, let’s see what the goblins’ reaction is: flee. This counts as having defeated the monsters, and I can gain loot… which is a scroll with a random spell… Lightning Bolt. I will give that to the Rogue. It looks like every class except Barbarians can use scrolls. Wizards are the best at using them but I have none in my party.

So, obviously, my heroes are quite almighty. At least that’s what they think. So let’s look at the door on the left.

An empty corridor. The search reveals a secret door!

The adventurers will spy into the room. There are 6 Fungi Folk, lvl 3. We will attack as we will have surprise (and I want to test out the combat rules). You need to roll at least the monster level to hit them, in round 1 they count as level 2 monsters because of surprise. The Fungi don’t flee but stand their ground.

So, the rules are a bit unclear about what happens when your attack roll explodes (you can reroll any 6 and add it). My first attack roll netted a 15 in total.Explosive Six Rule on page 6 says:

… In combat, this will let you kill multiple minions with a lucky blow. …

Later, on page 20:

Minions are encountered in large numbers. They have 1 life each. Every successful attack kills one. …

The Quick reference sheet says:

Attack procedure: (d6 + modifiers)/Monster level= number of minions slain. 1 is always a miss. 6 is always a hit.

That means that Kurm’s attack whirlwinds through the Fugi Men and slays them all. That’s 3 gp for the party. Kurm can make an XP roll because the party has defeated more than 10 minions. Success, he’s level 2 now!

So, let’s take the door on the south.

It’s a trap! Spears coming out of a wall, 2 characters are attacked: Yselda and Kurm. Both can evade (pfuuh). The party finds a piece of jewellery, worth 130 gp. Sweet!

Next room (room 5):

It’s empty but the party finds 1 gp. Back to room 4 but wandering monsters sneak up upon the group: 11 skeletal rats (lvl 3 undead)! Every rat attacks one party member and then the remaining 7 attack the Cleric because undead hate Clerics. After some rounds, the fight ends with now dead undead, Warren with 2 wounds and Bonifatio with 1 wound. The Warrior, Kurm, was able to level up and is now level 3.

The party now enters the room/corridor north of room 3. It’s an empty corridor, the search reveals a Clue for Yselda.

Next room, empty.

Searching it reveals a secret door. We peek into it, it’s empty:

Let’s enter the corridor and search. Hidden treasure! 117 gp but the gold is protected by a trap (lvl 4). Yselda, the Rogue, tries to disarm the trap. Success!

The party follows the corridor and takes the next door, another empty corridor.

Another empty room:

The next room contains 10 vampire bats (lvl 1). The party wants to see their reaction. They flee. Another XP roll, this time for the Rogue. Success, she is now level 2.

Hm, up until now I’ve only encountered minions and vermin, no boss monsters and not that much treasure. Let’s see if the next room (a dead end) will have some.

6 skeleton rats, the party waits to see how they react. Ok, they fight. Must have seen the cleric. But ultimately they stand no chance, although Warren had to heal himself. He rolls for XP and levels up.

Not a time to give up.

(I added grey empty boxes to show that there are two corridors which the party can follow).

But finally, a boss monster! An Ogre, but he’s not the final boss. Lvl 5, 6 LP, does 2 points of damage. The party has no mercy and attacks. The Halfling tries to hit it with a sling first and then needs to switch to his daggers. The others attack in melee. After 2 rounds of attack, the Ogre flees. The Cleric levels up because the party has defeated a boss monster.

Now, treasure! Hm, measly 5 gp.

Let’s stop here for a moment.

Some Thoughts

The basic rules are simple. But there are some fiddly bits which slowed down gameplay a bit. Dungeon-generators are generally pretty slow as you need to roll the tables. However, 4AD does a good job here. It uses only d6s and eschewing useless tables like wall decorations. That means that you create the necessary stuff.

The dungeon wasn’t very exciting, though. I always have fun with mapping, so that part was ok. But the chances for empty rooms or minor monsters (vermins and minions) are much higher than the more interesting stuff. Makes sense in one way but is not very thrilling.

Different from Ruins of the Undercity (RotU) there are no deeper levels. This will be a future supplement for 4AD. Also, the encounters are not scaled in level. The maximum level for player characters is level 5. A roll of 4 on the boss table is always a Medusa, level 4. In RotU the number of monsters and what kind of monster you encounter depends on your Average Party Level. In this regard, RotU is complete as it is able to simulate more dangerous areas for high-level characters.

Some rules in 4AD are a bit unclear. One example you can see above. Another is when monsters flee. At some time in the rulebook, the rules state that you cannot loot the bodies of fleeing monsters. Later, the book tells you that if monsters flee they count as defeated and you get their gold anyway. So, there is a mismatch here. I’m also not sure how to fit the different rooms and corridors together. Should I flip some of the rooms so that doors match each other? Or should I just slap on the next room regardless if it fits?

The Halfling class was underwhelming. I think the other classes are stronger or more useful. The Halfling has his Luck roll but at least at low levels that doesn’t count for much and he is very weak with attacking and defending. The Rogue can disarm traps and the others also have their own gimmicks.

Moreover, the book could be better organized. As a first-time player, I had to flip a lot. The rules for combat are scattered amongst the chapter for “Encounters” and “How to Attack Monsters”. And these chapters don’t follow after each other. On the plus side, there are three pocket mods and two quick references which you can print out. That helps a lot.

My first impression is that this is a solid game. It is fun and the rules work. I will need to playtest it a bit more for a better understanding.

The winner takes it all

I’m giving away 5 PDF copies. Just comment below and I will draw random winners on May 15th. Don’t forget to give me some way to contact you (email, G+, twitter etc.). And you’ll need a DrivethruRPG/Rpgnow account.

The product itself contains a contest which you can enter if you post a review or playthrough. You can win lifetime supply for the game by the author. Hawt!

Maybe you are stumbling over this review at DTRPG/RPGnow or maybe you’ve picked it up on G+ or Twitter. And you are probably reading this because you are an OSR fan. Perhaps you’re wondering if The Black Hack is worth your time and money. Or maybe you are just interested in my opinion. (Thanks.) Either way, you are probably familiar with old school Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) games.

… a super-streamlined roleplaying game that uses the Original 1970s Fantasy Roleplaying Game as a base, and could well be the most straightforward modern OSR compatible clone available. If speed of play and character creation, compatibility, and simple – yet elegant rules are what you yearn for. Look no further!

You might want to know if the product can keep its promise. In a moment, we will take a look at the game. At the end of this article, you really should be able to decide for yourself. I know you’re wondering: such an effort for a 2 dollar product? But you will surely agree that people only want to spend their time and money for things which they hope will be valuable for them. So I’m writing a review for a 20-page product. Please note that this is a reading review.

Alright, let’s get this out of the way: this is a modern OSR clone. That means that it is old school D&D at its core with some tweaking and some ideas from more recent games. It’s not a hipster “indie” game per se, it’s not a newer version of D&D nor is it a (straight) retro-clone (like Delving Deeper and such).

First of all, the game uses the standard array of stats. Roll 3d6 in order. You can swap two stats. If you roll a 15+, the next stat must be rolled with 2d6. Basically, you end up with pretty well-rounded characters as the bell curve output of 3d6 ensures that you most of your attributes end up somewhere between 8 and 13 anyway.

4 classes: Warrior, Cleric, Conjurer, Thief. No races. Classes have armor and weapon restrictions. Weapon restrictions are silly as the attack damage depends on your class, not on your chosen weapon. So a Warrior always deals 1d8 with a weapon, be it an axe, a sword or a flail. And Clerics always deal 1d6 damage but are only allowed blunt weapons. The author probably wanted to stay true to the OD&D roots.

The core mechanic for the game is roll below a stat on a d20. No saving throws, this is also handled with an attribute check. Time and turns are a bit weird. The author renamed rounds into Moments and turns into Minutes. And Minutes can also be Hours or Days. But because that’s not very intuitive, both terms are spelled out (i.e. Minutes (turns)). I don’t get the need for new names. Additionally, the author doesn’t explain the duration of a turn.

There are some deviations from standard old school fare in the Black Hack. Armor provides protection via Armor Points (AP). For example, Leather has 4 AP and reduced damage by that amount.Only the players roll dice.The rule is hidden but edit: It’s not really hidden. The text doesn’t directly say “Only the players roll dice” but it states what you need to do to attack or defend: if a monster attacks, the player might make a check to try to avoid. That means the GM doesn’t roll an attack roll. For example, if it’s possible to dodge the monster’s attack, the player makes a Dexterity test. Powerful opponents make a test harder but the basic mechanism is the same.Movement is abstract and uses 4 ranges: Close, Nearby, Far-Away, and Distant. When your Hit Points are reduced to zero, you are taken Out of Action and must roll a d6 on a table. Results vary from KO’d to Dead. Let’s hope that Lady Luck is on your side.

The GM decides about advancement. There are no experience points, for every milestone a character gains a level.

Additionally, the Black Hack uses the now popular Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic (think Barbarians of Lemuria or D&D 5e). While there are some guidelines when these apply (for example when you use a weapon you’re not proficient with), the rules are really vague on this. Eventually, the GM will need to decide when to apply this formula to make tasks harder or easier. There are no rules for combat maneuvers or other fancy stuff. That means that the mechanics only cover the basic attacking and defending moves. Everything else you need to come up on your own, call for an attribute check and maybe roll with Advantage/Disadvantage. And that’s where you must decide if that’s ok for you or not. If you like minimalist and rules-lite games, you might embrace the freedom. If you want a bit more crunch or just a list with some more options, this game falls flat on its ass. The Black Hack doesn’t reinvent the wheel but asks you to draw from your previous gaming experiences with old school games.

What I like about the ruleset is how it handles equipment. Consumable items have a Usage Die. A quiver of arrows has a d10. You need to roll it and when you roll a 1-2, you step down the die until. When you roll a 1-2 on a d4 item, the item is depleted. I like how this makes bookkeeping much easier. Chapeau! I’m a bit miffed about the equipment list, though. For instance, one-handed weapons are missing. Yes, a starter character gets one weapon of choice for free but what if I want to buy an additional ranged weapon?

Classes are imbalanced. Interestingly, characters start with much higher Hit Points (HP) than typical. For instance, a Warrior has 1d10 + 4 starting HP. Conjurers only have 1d4 + 4. So in the worst case scenario, you end up with 5 HP. Still, that’s not as bad as it sounds. That’s because monsters strangely deal less damage than characters. PCs can do between 1d4 (Conjurer) and 1d8 damage (Warrior) at level 1. A monster with 1 HD (Hit Die/Dice) deals only d4 damage (or a static 2 points). Per default rules, a fight can be pretty boring. There is no way to make a fight mechanically interesting except the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic (again, there are almost no guidelines for when to use them in combat). Well, there is a rule for critical hits. And why are characters much more capable than monsters of the same level? I’m a bit surprised about the four range increments because there are no rules for tactical movement. The basic rule is that on a turn every character can move somewhere Nearby and still make an action (i.e. an attack). You can forgo an action and move further etc. But still I wonder why there is a need for four combat zones. Of course, melee attacks are only possible at Close range. The range for ranged weapons is not defined in the book. That’s because there are no ranged weapons included in the equipment list. So the GM will have to come up with her own rulings.

What about spells? There is a spell list for Clerics (Divine Spells) and one for Conjurers (Arcane Spells) with the typical stuff. Clerics gain their first spell at level 2. So a 1st level Cleric can’t cast spells. A 1st level Conjurer only can cast one spell. The game uses spell slots. You can only cast as many spells as you have slots per day. I don’t want to spell out the whole rulebook (see what I did here?), suffice to say that they are no big surprises here. It all fits snugly into the rest of the game and the base mechanic of making an attribute check. Clerics can try to banish undead which can be a consolidation for the lack of spells at first level.

There is no GM section per se, the rules are scattered across the whole book. But as The Black Hack is minimalist, that’s not a problem. As a GM, you have two pages of monsters at your disposal. But notice that spareness comes at a cost. Strictly speaking, the rules are incomplete and you won’t understand them if you aren’t already familiar with role-playing games.

A word about the appearance: The book is nicely laid out, text and tables are easy to read, good font choices. It’s 20 pages total, including the cover and the OGL at the back of the book.

The price of USD $2.00 is fair.

tl;dr

The Black Hack is a rules-lite neo D&D clone. I like the mix of old school feeling and newer innovations. However, the game is not without fault. At times, the game text just stays too vague for my taste. And why does the author insist on weapon restrictions when the damage value is fixed per class? Plus, the balance between monsters and characters feels off. Is the game supposed to be more heroic? If so, why don’t characters start with max HP at first level? And why are spellcasting classes that restricted at first level? That said, as the target audience, I likeThe Black Hack. Yes, it’s the millionth D&D clone but it fits my preferences. It feels elegant and fun. Suppose that you are not a rules-lite OSR gamer with a taste for modern tweaks, then you will probably much more critical of the rules. I want you to discover for yourself if this description fits you or not. Then you will know if The Black Hack is worth a shot.